GOV. Pataki’s increasingly bifurcated, upstate/downstate, reelection strategy is being called into question by a string of new polls, especially the latest from Marist College.

All the polls taken since last fall’s Republican disaster – when out-of-state Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton buried New York GOP homeboy Rick Lazio and Al Gore left George Bush eating dust – have shown Pataki at or below 50 percent against potential Democratic opponents, a warning sign for any incumbent.

But last Thursday’s Marist survey showing Pataki at 45 percent in a match-up with Andrew Cuomo – who was at an impressive 42 percent – was nothing short of a Red Alert.

Within minutes of the poll’s release, I received e-mails from two prominent Republican operatives, who said they feared the new poll meant Pataki would lose next year.

That seemed premature and even intemperate, so I asked the pair to explain themselves.

Here’s why they believe Pataki is in serious danger:

* The public’s perception of the national economy is changing fast for the worst – after years of widespread optimism – and Pataki’s fate is directly tied to that movement.

* Pataki, by pushing for tougher gun laws and higher sportsmen license fees, has angered upstate hunters and fishermen, a potent political voting block at the “core” of the Republican Party.

* Pataki’s support for dredging PCBs from the upper Hudson River has put him on a collision course with many of the heavily Republican region’s best-known GOP leaders including Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

Dozens of local governments – representing tens of thousands of voters – also oppose the Pataki-backed plan.

* Pataki’s effort to “reform” the Rockefeller drug laws has alienated the state’s district attorneys and many in the law-enforcement community, a traditional source of GOP support.

* The governor’s support for “school finance reform,” benefiting New York City at the possible expense of upstate and the suburbs, has created a wariness toward Pataki by powerful, GOP-oriented, education interests that wasn’t there before.

* Pataki’s opposition to naval bombing on Vieques, his embrace of socialist-oriented union leader Dennis Rivera, and his aggressive courting of Puerto Rican, black and gay voters, is alienating many traditional GOP voters.

* Pataki’s proposed record-high state budget has angered traditional conservative backers and some big money supporters, like those behind Change-NY.

“The bottom line on all of it,” said a top Republican operative, “is that the powerful forces that came together to drive Cuomo from office in 1994 are not going to be there for Pataki next year.

“As the governor has positioned himself to the left, as he’s tried to make himself more and more acceptable to Democratic voters downstate, he’s been losing his upstate base.

“He’s viewed as a sellout by many people who were once his supporters. And the question of whether the Democrats he is courting can make up for the Republicans he’s lost is a question that’s yet to be answered.”

Which brings us back to Pataki’s bifurcated political strategy.

Journalists covering Pataki have seen the emergence of an almost schizophrenic chief executive, so much so that it sometimes seems as if New York now has two different governors.

There’s the conservative-oriented “upstate Pataki” who appears at the Capitol Monday and Tuesday, holds a rushed press conference, a few government-related events, and then claims big-spending Democrats don’t want a new state budget.

The governor then usually spends Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday in other upstate areas, announcing 200 new jobs here, an economic development incentive there.

By Wednesday, it’s back to his palatial home in Garrison, Putnam County, and then several days in New York City, where the “downstate Pataki” emerges.

This is the liberal-oriented Pataki who announces health-care spending grants and shouts “No Mas Bombas” as he courts Hispanic voters.

It’s also environmental activist Pataki, courting the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and multicultural and pro-labor Pataki, speaking on behalf of immigrant and workers’ rights, against “sweat shops,” and who aggressively embraces the rhetoric of “diversity” as he courts prominent black leaders.

“Pataki is trying to be all things to all voters and it’s just not going to work in a state as heavily Democratic as this one,” said the chief-of-staff of a prominent elected Republican.

“I support the governor, but a lot of our voters aren’t sure who he is any more. Is he the upstate guy who glad-hands and says he’s really with us on the issues we care about, cutting taxes, keeping government out of our lives, keeping the environmental greenies and the anti-gun crowd out of our hair?

“Or is he the trendy lefty yuppie liberal Republican who wants to hang around with the Hamptons crowd and be praised by all the labor leaders – so he can get himself elected next year and continue his lifestyle?

“More and more Republicans think he’s the latter, which is why they also think he’s in big political trouble if he runs for re-election next year.”

And that’s a view both the Upstate Pataki and the Downstate Pataki would do well to keep in mind.

Post State Editor Fredric U. Dicker has covered the state capitol for more than 20 years.